A later version looking closer to the current pre-production prototype - black acrylic with working electronics on protoboards

A later version looking closer to the current pre-production prototype - black acrylic with working electronics on protoboards

The various components of prototype number two

An early - and subsequently abandoned - design which is hollow inside and made up of layers of ABS plastic cut into shape

The Tabstrummer's touch-sensitive printed-circuit-board (PCB) trace strings which are wide enough apart to enable individual picking as well as full strumming

The neck hosts 24 clicky buttons, a dozen of which can be programmed with a chord shape and stored in the onboard memory

Close up of the Tabstrummer's touch-sensitive PCB trace strings

The clear acrylic used for the pre-production prototype exposes all of the inner working to view

To program a chord, a user could, for example, mute the bottom E string, then press button number 2 for the A string, then 2 again for the D string, followed by 1 for the G string, then 0 or mute for the remaining two strings

Electronics enthusiast Miroslaw Sowa and programmer Vsevolod Zagainov - both from Montreal, Canada - are currently busy putting the final touches on a new button-based, guitar-shaped sound machine called the Tabstrummer. In the same way that tablature notation has allowed players like me (who are unable to read score) to learn new songs, this new MIDI instrument allows folks who'd like to play a guitar, but for whatever reason can't, the opportunity to easily create some chord-strumming music. The instrument allows chord shapes to be assigned to clicky buttons on the short neck, which can then be recalled and played as a song by simultaneously strumming or picking the virtual strings.